Greenmax Kit Questions

[mr_bananies]

Hello,

 

I'm populating my town with buildings and found a Greenmax kit that has lots of small houses. It's the Residence Assemble Set. I like that it comes with 6 houses of similar size and different in their own ways. I'm kinda a beginner and don't have any fancy tools like an airbrush to paint. I tried a Sankei kit and and it turned out great and I didn't find it hard at all. I want to know what i'm getting into if i'm spending money to pay and ship for something like this.

 

1.To what difficulty are these kits?

 

2. How does one go about painting them? 

 

3. Compared to buying Sankei kits or prebuilt buildings is it cost effective? Should I just scratch build?

 

[bill937ca]

Hobby Search is taking reservations for the painted versions of the Greenmax house set and the shop set. Each set has three buildings. Assembly is just cut and glue window glazing (included) and glue the building together.  Usually there is a choice of shop fronts to choose from and a sheet of sign stickers. Due for mid-June release.  I did a painted Greenmax local station Saturday night.

 

Tools I used were a sprue cutter, cutting pad, glue and a small cutting tool for the window glazing.

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10667160

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10667159

 

The older version requires a little more work including painting the building.  This is not hard as it is a very simple, but common  structure.

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10190734

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10190735

Edited June 8, 2020 by bill937ca

[cteno4]

The newer greenmax kits now are precolored kits so not much of any painting is needed. They are pretty easy kits (colored or uncolored) to assemble, pretty basic plastic model kits. The unpainted ones it’s easiest to prime them with cheap lacquer primer (ie rattle spray can) and basic wall color before assembling then you can detail paint once assembled or before, up to you. Hardest thing is the detail painting of window frames and such can be a little tedious. All you really need to build them is a good xacto knife and some glue! Good Sprew cutters help make things fast and easy and while good ones can cost you a few bucks, you do get what you pay for! I recently broke down and bought a pair for $40 that I did not for many years and now regret not getting them years ago as my cheaper ones did not slice so cleanly and required a lot of trimming.

 

many of the larger greenmax buildings are very good to use for kitbashing and some are actually made to whack up into different possible forms.

 

the green max kits are probably the cheapest of all the japanese n scale buildings once shipped for the size etc of what you get.

 

sankei are nice as they are cheaper to ship but bit more expensive. Glad you had a good experience assembling them, I find them really zen like to build. There are some other of the lasercut chipboard kit makers but they are not quite the quality of sankei but some interesting models.

 

over all it’s great to do some of each to get some variety.
 

scratch building is of course pretty cheap, but takes the most time and practice/experience to do. It can be frustrating to dive straight into that as a beginner. Some plastic models really help to learn and get experience, dexterity, etc first. Then try some kitbashing and adding some scratch building additions. 
 

cheers

 

jeff